"Oh—Why!—You know! Something above the common run. Like Grace Darling, or Miss Florence Nightingale, or that Duchess who stayed behind in the French bazaar to be burnt to death, so that others might escape. It was noblesse oblige with her, wasn't it? I think it would be grand to do something of that sort,—that would be always remembered and talked about."
"Perhaps so. But don't forget that what one is in the little things of life, one is also in the great things. More than one rehearsal is generally given to us before the 'great opportunity' is sent. And if we fail in the rehearsals, we fail then also."
"Yes—I know. And I do mean to work at my studies. But all the same, I should like to do something, some day, really and truly great."
Miss Mordaunt looked wistfully at the girl. "Dear Magda—real greatness does not mean being talked about. It means—doing the Will of God in our lives—doing our duty, and doing it for Him."
[CHAPTER II]
WHAT WAS THE USE?
MANY months later that parting interview with Miss Mordaunt recurred vividly to Magda.
"What's the good of it all, I wonder?" she had been asking aloud.
And suddenly, as if called up from a far distance, she saw again Miss Mordaunt's face, and heard again her own confident utterances.
It was a bitterly cold March afternoon. She stood alone under the great walnut tree in the back garden—which was divided by a tall hedge from the kitchen garden. Over her head was a network of bare boughs; and upon the grass at her feet lay a pure white carpet. Some lilac bushes near had begun to show promise of coming buds; but they looked doleful enough now, weighed down by snow.